"Yes" on 46 for equal opportunity

If passed this November, our measure would prohibit the government from discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race or gender in public hiring, public contracting, and public education. The move would allow us to open our outreach efforts to every disadvantaged individual seeking a good education or a quality job.

The Post, in an Oct. 8 editorial, disagrees. It wants readers to believe that race and gender play relatively small roles in university admissions decisions. The Post has no proof for this assertion. In fact, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education has refused to release admissions statistics that would show the role that race and gender actually play.

Earlier this year, CCHE was approached by the Center For Equal Opportunity, a national civil rights organization, seeking to compile admissions demographic data. The request was denied.

In other states where CEO made its requests, however, including Nebraska and Arizona, we now know that race plays an incredibly discriminatory role in how public institutions admit students. According to study author Dr. Althea Nagai, the odds favoring African-Americans over similarly qualified whites at the University of Nebraska law school was 442 to 1.

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During the two years studied — 2006 and 2007 — 389 whites were rejected by the school despite higher LSATs and undergraduate GPAs than the average black student admitted.

Similar discrimination was found at the University of Arizona and Arizona State law schools, where nearly 1,000 white students were denied admission in 2006 and 2007 even though they had higher undergraduate GPAs and LSATs than the average black student admitted. In addition, more than 100 Asian and Latino students were similarly denied admission for lower-qualified students.

At the University of Colorado, race and gender segregation are ingrained in every aspect of campus life. Millions of taxpayer dollars are used every year to administer race- and gender-segregated guidance counseling, scholarships, orientations, and other educational programming.

Voters should support Amendment 46 because fairness and equality dictate that our affirmative-action efforts — designed initially to fight the effects of discrimination — don't discriminate. If we want to promote diversity, we must lay to rest the false notion that diversity is tied to our biology and not our own unique life experiences.

If we look to the examples of states that have passed similar initiatives, including California, we see that women and minorities succeed when their inferiority is not presumed by government officials. In the 12 years since voters passed a prohibition on race and gender preferences in California, the UC system has seen admissions rates of racial minorities rise at seven of nine campuses. But more importantly, minority students systemwide are much more likely to graduate now than they were previously. And today, as is also the case in Colorado, 56 percent of all UC undergraduate students are women. The bottom line: Women and minorities don't need to be singled out for special help to succeed.

Amendment 46 acknowledges what we already know, which is that America is becoming an incredibly diverse place where race is no longer so easily defined and gender is no longer the impediment to success that it once was. Our outreach efforts should be tied to economic disadvantage — a variable that doesn't require the government to discriminate or pit one race or gender against another. A "yes" vote on Amendment 46 this November is a vote for fairness and equality.

is executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative campaign.

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